Outside Interference (the good kind)

This past week I had the great fortune to spend time with 40 of the top women sales trainers, consultant, authors and speakers. As we gathered in Seattle at the lovely Pan Pacific hotel on Thursday morning the air was buzzing with energy.

For three days we traded ideas, successes, failures, insights, and advice and it was magical. Every person I talked to came away with a laundry list of tweaks and/or full-on turnarounds for her business.

Personally, I have a list of 16 must-dos by the end of the year. Each one of those items is something I never would have thought to do to enhance my business.

As successful business professionals, we sometimes think we have it all figured out

We dole out advice to those who aren’t performing at our level and we feel pretty darned good about our station in life.

But we are deluding ourselves if we think we have all the answers.

It is only when we see our business with fresh eyes, the kind that can only come from someone outside our company, that we can truly understand where we are and how far we have to go.

Here is a great example

One of the most successful women in our group left the room three times during each day. When I asked her where she was going she said simply, “I make 10 outbound calls every day. I’m headed to my room right now to do three of them. Don’t you do that?”

Regardless of where she is and what she is doing, this remarkable woman sticks to her process. And she caught me slacking.

I like to think I am disciplined and that I focus on my business, but I’ll admit I had given myself permission to skip my routines because I was at this conference. It was only through seeing my actions through her eyes that I realized I was being lazy.

Here is another example

A day later, went into my board of directors meeting with what I thought was a key challenge facing me – how to develop a new coaching program. One of my board members asked, “How many clients have asked for this program?” It was only then that I realized that no one had asked for it. I had simply decided it was a good thing to offer.

Instead of working on the coaching program, my board directed me to a laundry list of other more valuable and more profitable projects to work on. Once again, when outsiders looked at my business, they saw things I could never have seen.

What kind of outside interference do you have?

Are you working with a coach or a consultant?
Do you have a board of directors or belong to a mastermind-type group?
Do you watch training videos or attend conferences that challenge your status quo?

The last few weeks of the year are when most of us are rushing to make quotas or close out the year with a bang. It is also a great time to get a fresh look at what you’re doing. Take time this week to find a way to get an outsider to look at your processes and actions.

If you engage outside eyes now you will find a few terrific ways to hit your goals faster and finish 2018 better than you imagined.

If you’d like to schedule a call with me to get a fresh set of eyes on your business, you can do that here.

Laura Posey

Laura Posey is Chief Instigator at Simple Success Plans. Her driving mission is to show entrepreneurs how to double their business while taking more time out of the company to make a difference in the world.
She is an avid traveler and is always looking to connect with readers around the world.